A British Airways flight suffered a double tailstrike while landing at Heathrow on Thursday morning, 12 November, forcing the pilots to abort the approach and go around before landing safely on their second attempt. Nobody was hurt and passengers disembarked as normal, but the aircraft has been pulled from service and the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has been called in.
Flight BA431, an Airbus A321neo (registration G-TNEB) arriving from Amsterdam, was coming in to land on runway 27L shortly after 10:30am when the rear of the aircraft struck the runway surface twice as it touched down, a manoeuvre known as a double tailstrike. The crew initiated a go-around, climbing back out to around 4,000 feet before repositioning for a second approach. The aircraft landed without further incident at around 10:49am.
The weather at the time was calm, with light northwesterly winds of around 10mph, according to Met Office data for Heathrow at the time. The incident was filmed live by the plane-spotting channel Big Jet TV, whose footage showing the aircraft swaying before the tailstrike was shared widely on social media.
British Airways confirmed the aircraft is now out of service for inspection. "The aircraft landed safely, and we're assisting the AAIB with its investigation and are legally unable to comment further at this stage," a spokesperson said. Aviation outlet Paddle Your Own Kanoo reported that British Airways has tentatively scheduled the aircraft to return to service on 14 November, though this depends on the extent of any damage found. The same outlet confirmed AAIB investigators have been formally called in to probe the incident. Aviation incident tracker AeroInside separately logged the event, recording the touchdown and go-around on runway 27L and classifying it as an accident pending further findings.
Tailstrikes occur when the rear fuselage of an aircraft makes contact with the runway, usually during a landing flare that is too steep or a late recovery from a bounce. They can range from cosmetic damage to serious structural harm requiring extended repairs; an Air France A350 that suffered a tailstrike in Toronto in 2024 was out of service for months.
There is no indication of wider knock-on cancellations or delays at Heathrow linked to this single aircraft being grounded, and the airport's schedule was otherwise operating normally on Thursday. Passengers who were on BA431 landed safely and continued their journeys as planned.
What this means for your journey: this was a single-aircraft incident with no passenger injuries and no reported impact on the wider Heathrow schedule, so if you have a flight booked in the coming days there is nothing to change. If you are travelling to or from the airport, check our /public-transport/ guide for the latest on getting to and from the terminals.